Matteo takes out his driver's license and a 100 Euro bill before handing them over to the guy who spoke to him. Then he motions for Aurora to get out of the fountain.
"If you think this bribery will work then you're mistaken, Mr..." the officer trails off as he reads his name, voice breaking at the end. "Oh. Mr. Giudice?"
"Yes, and that 'blonde' is my little sister, Aurora." Matteo adds, pointing to her, before placing both of his hands in his pockets and finally relaxing.
The other policeman checks his ID as well, looking at him then at the photo about five times before handing the ID back to him. The 100 Euro bill didn't make it back, of course.
"Have a good night." The first to talk smiles at him, before bowing his head and going back to the car.
By the time they leave the Square everyone is out of the fountain and over the fence, the earlier mood ruined. Vinnie hands his jacket to Valentina, who obviously didn't think that getting herself wet while wearing a white dress would be a bad idea.
"Let's just go back to the car, I'm bored." Pia groans after not having said anything for ten minutes while the rest of them finished the bottles.
"I drank, I can't drive." Matteo says.
She rolls her eyes and looks away, crossing her arms over her chest. "Then let's order a taxi."
"Why are you in such a bad mood today?"
Her cheeks turn pink, and she looks at him with an angry look on her face but doesn't answer.
"There's a taxi station a few streets away." Vinnie suggests, so they all set off after him.
"What did you tell the police to make them go away?" Isabella asks him once the two of them and Valentina naturally end up a few steps behind.
"I gave them a hundred and showed them my ID."
"They recognized the name, obviously." Pia says, not turning around, probably rolling her eyes.
"Do they know their names?" Valentina asks her and Matteo knows she's asking a question she already knows the answer to. What he doesn't know though, is why.
"Vaguely." He answers for Pia.
"Why?"
Aurora interrupts their conversation by calling over a free taxi van coming down the street in their direction.
They all pile inside and Vinnie hands the driver two hundred Euros, apologizing for them dripping on the seats. They drop Isabella off first before they set off East towards Aspra. Pia is sitting between Vinnie and Matteo while Aurora and Valentina each lean against a window, contently smiling as they look out of them.
"Did you have fun on your first ever day in Palermo?" Aurora asks, turning her head to look at Valentina.
"Yes, I did. I'm sure it's even more fun when the city isn't locked down." She makes eye contact with Matteo as she says it, and neither of them break it until Aurora sits up straight. The car stops in the middle of the road, across from the gate leading to the Barone residence, just a few hundred meters away from their own home.
"See you tomorrow, the plane leaves at six thirty!" Matteo yells after them.
Five minutes later they're already walking down the long driveway leading up to the house.
"I love this smell." Valentina sighs and looks up at the trees as she walks.
"What smell?"
It smells like nothing, as usual.
"The smell of the sea...the smell of summer. I want to live here."
"Why would you want to live here?" Matteo laughs, not intending to sound judgemental. They stop in front of the door and the girls wait for him to unlock it.
"Why wouldn't I want to live here? The air is...different. I feel like everything is different. I even like the people here more than I do back home."
"You've only met us, though."
Valentina looks up at him with a smile as she struggles to take off her sneakers once they're inside.
"I've been vacationing in Capo d'Orlando for over ten years. There's a clear difference in the personalities of people who grow up in sunny places and those who grow up in places where it's mostly bad weather. I notice the difference between the people in Russia and people in Italy. Especially the boys."
Matteo rolls his eyes. "Italian boys being a thing is only a stereotype. I can name a few who would definitely be worse than your Russian boys."
"Yes, but you know what I mean."
"I do."
Aurora is just standing there, looking between the two of them as they talk. She grabs her stuff and slips into her house slippers.
"You can have the matching pair, Valentina." She says and points to the matching white slippers. "I'm going to bed, see you tomorrow."
She hugs them both and kisses Matteo on the cheek before hurrying up the stairs. They follow in silence.
"Do you have pajamas?" Matteo asks her when they stop in front of his door, since it's the first one right by the stairs.
"Yes, Aurora gave me some."
"Alright."
He places a hand on the doorknob and looks at her one more time.
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
He takes a quick shower with his playlist on shuffle before he changes into his sleeping briefs. Just as he's about to go out on his balcony to smoke his end of the day cigarette (he's too lazy to roll), there's a knock at the door.
Valentina is standing there in his sister's cotton pajamas holding up a cigarette and a lighter.
"I wanted to smoke my goodnight cigarette, but I realized I don't have a balcony and I didn't want to smoke out the window." She explains.
Matteo steps aside and she waltzes in, asking if she can take the half-filled bottle from the desk.
"Just take a new one out of the fridge." He answers and points to the mini fridge in the corner next to his dressing room.
She joins him outside and sits down where she first sat down this morning. The only light on his balcony is the one above their heads, and he can see her lips are dark red from the wine she's been drinking.
They smoke in silence for a couple of minutes while looking out into the darkness. Matteo thinks about everything that happened today, and how different it felt from the past two months, which he knows feels have gone by on autopilot.
The Italian rap song that was just playing inside changes to PPP by Beach House.
"I love this song." She smiles and closes her eyes.
Matteo listens to it for a while. The song feels like getting home after a long day at the beach, feeling content. He used to feel like that when he was younger and everything around him seemed easy.
"Why did you play stupid today?" he asks out of a sudden.
Valentina turns to look at him, surprised but still relaxed. "When did I play stupid?"
"When Pia was trying to belittle you and you didn't play into it."
"Ah. Whatever that was about, it's definitely not about me. I don't even know her, so that's her problem to deal with."
"What about when you asked if the police knew our names?"
"Sometimes my instinct tells me when it's better to be underestimated."
Matteo puts out his cigarette and watches the small orange spark fade into darkness. "Do you ever do that with me?"
She tilts her head and blows out smoke, her tongue poking out between her teeth as she smiles. "What do you think?"
There's a spark in her eye. He smiles and looks back down at the ashtray, feeling a bit dizzy from the wine, the cigarettes, and the joint he smoked earlier.
"I think you're way smarter than you let on."
She playfully squints at him and puts out the cigarette without breaking eye contact. "Which tells me the same thing about you."
Valentina smiles at him once more before standing up and grabbing the bottle. "I had fun today, thank you."
He nods and looks at her bare legs for a split second before looking back at her face. She looks more tired in the light now, but her eyes still look the same like they always do.
"Goodnight."
She waves as she leaves the balcony without looking back at him. "Goodniiight." She sings. The door to his room closes a few seconds later.
Matteo chain-smokes two more cigarettes as he looks out into the darkness, listening to the waves and the song playing in the background, thinking about nothing. He goes to bed ten minutes later, his mind blank.
When he closes his eyes, all he sees and feels is that endless moment he was in the fountain with the water up to his neck and looked up at the sky.
He falls asleep without anything playing in the background for the first time in months.
----
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ValentinaPalermo, Sicily 2020 – summer I wake up in an unfamiliar room with a dry mouth, completely disoriented. It takes me a few seconds to realize that the cream-colored ceiling and the matching drapes don't belong to my bedroom in Russia.Fragments of my dream come back to me as soon as I completely wake up. I try to shake them off, bury them somewhere deep in my brain where I'll never find them again. It's a new day, but the view I have of the trees doesn't look like rainy Moscow.Then I remember that I'm in Sicily, sleeping in a guest room in Matteo's house. I sit up and groan, rubbing my eyes and running my hands through my hair. I can still taste the wine from last night.My mom wasn't too happy about me being in Italy during the pandemic, but getting out of the house after two months feels good. My dad hasn't even read the messages I sent in the group yesterday.Raisa: you're in Palermo????"Uuugh." I say under my breath as I read the message she sent last night. While I
Raisa: I talked to ArianaRaisa: I'm flying out in an hour, see you there!!"¡Se deve autoinvitarsi, dille almeno di portare Aleksi!" For a moment I think Matteo's talking to me, but then I see him holding the phone up to his mouth to send voice memos. All I understood was 'autoinvite' and Aleksi, which tells me everything I need to know."Who are you talking to?" I ask.---See you on Wednesday !I hope you enjoy the book x"Vinnie. Your friend is coming too."I squint at him. "'My friend' is your friend too."Matteo pretends not to hear me as he lights another cigarette."And don't act like it's such a drag that she's coming. You know exactly why you want Alex there."He rolls his eyes. "Did I say anything? You're the one getting defensive."I don't bother telling him I heard it in his tone, the way he told Vinnie that Raisa invited herself in Italian, thinking I couldn't understand him. I know Spanish, or at least I understand it from all the telenovelas I used to watch and the
As if on cue, I hear Isabella calling my name. We meet by the door. She looks very happy and pleased with what she heard. It relaxes me enough to trust the process."Your turn."I take my seat in front of Pandora, who is busy shuffling the cards and looking at an unlit candle.
"No." I answer. "Plus, it's summer. I want to enjoy myself, have fun. I think we should hang out when I'm in Sicily with my family. Is Capo d'Orlando far away?""Are you kidding? It's not even that far! A two hour drive, tops." she excitedly says. "We'll definitely hang out. Maybe I can come over to your house, since I live in the city and I love the beach."
MatteoSicily, Italy – spring/summer 2020Friday May 29th, 2pmHis father calls him as he's smoking a joint on his balcony, staring out at the sea with nothing on his mind. He remembers waking up two times before actually getting out of bed.First time, it was Valentina saying his name that brought him back to reality. He was still semi-unconscious when he told her something he cannot remember now.The second time, it was a pair of flip flops slapping against the ground that stirred him awake. Lastly, he couldn't fall asleep after that, so he got out of bed.Isabella's idea of the girls going to see a psychic put him in a better mood. Their childlike excitement made him happy inside, like he was surrounded by people he could trust. That's why he allowed himself to make the occasional snarky remark. He decided that the two of them could hold their own against him.The moment his father calls though, his good mood shatters.He places the joint in one of the cigarette-holders of the asht
Friday, 3:40pm Isabella and Valentina have been gone for over three hours now, and Matteo has been driving himself insane thinking about the initiation ritual. He just wants a distraction, and this weekend is perfect for that. He wants to get the airport, get to Ibiza, get on that yacht, and get wasted. So wasted he parties through the whole day into Sunday, where he'll sleep for a few hours before his father will wake him up.
Saturday 1:30amMatteo's next three hours are filled with Vodka Red Bulls, lines of cocaine done in the bathroom, and trying to escape both Raisa and Allison at the same time. Vinnie is nowhere to be seen, still upset about Sophia (maybe), and Isabella and Valentina have been talking on one of the lounge chairs since they've arrived.
Everybody startles when Matteo catches the glass with his hand, saving his own head from being his by a glass. She doesn't say anything else as she marches up the stairs towards the bedrooms.